Thoughts on politics, law, culture and guns from an eclectic, but mainly center-right point of view

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Thought of the Day

And why lookest thou on the mote that is in the eye of thy brother, but observest not the beam that is in thine eye.

Matthew 7:3

I usually don't comment on the Thought of the Day, but this one cries out for a little explanation. First you have to get past the archaic forms for the verbs and personal pronouns. 'Thou', 'thy', 'thine' are of course forms we have replaced with 'you' and 'your' Same with the verb forms and the 'st' or 'est' added to the otherwise familiar verbs. Modern 'you look' becomes 'thou lookest' 400 years ago. I'm not a hundred percent sure but I think this was a familiar form, that is, words and endings one would only use with family and friends--like the 'du' in German. 'Du' and 'dich' are familiar, informal. 'Sie' and 'ihnen' are formal. 'Thou' may have been informal. 'You' was likely formal. One other problem is the word 'mote'. What the heck is a mote? Isn't that the thing around a castle? And how can the thing around a castle get in your eye? A moat is around a castle. We don't use the word 'mote' much any more. It means speck, as in a speck of dust, a very tiny particle.The last problem is the word 'beam'. We know what a beam is; it's a huge piece of timber used to hold up the roof or floor of a house. But how can such a huge piece of wood be in someone's eye? (I hope I'm not the only one who's ever asked that question) How would it fit? Wouldn't it be instantly fatal? I don't know the exact use beam had when King James ruled England, but the point of the comparison is the tiny speck versus the larger (not necessarily house framing size) milled wood piece. You see the tiniest of defects in another but ignore the unmissible (but for denial) defects in your self.